For decades, Bill Belichick lorded over the NFL as few ever have. A bully in a hoodie, he led his New England empire to six Super Bowl titles and 17 AFC East crowns and through countless controversies.

From success to scandal, from fashion choices to news conference one-liners, he was always top of mind in the NFL.

He still is, actually.

“I don’t think there is a conversation these days where what is happening with Bill doesn’t get mentioned within the first five minutes,” one NFC player personnel director said.

Train wrecks cause craned necks, and Belichick’s early tenure at the University of North Carolina qualifies as one.

Snubbed by the league he once dominated, Belichick headed to the college ranks this year expecting success. Instead, he has thus far produced a stumbling, embarrassing soap opera of a season. The Tar Heels are 2-3 and desperately lack talent after losing 39 players from last year’s team and bringing in more than 40 transfers. They head to Cal on Friday as 10.5-point underdogs.

The jokes are frequent. So too is the schadenfreude. Most notably, though, the scene in Chapel Hill provides validation for NFL teams, which, after Belichick and the Patriots parted ways after the 2023 season, uniformly passed on hiring him.

Monday saw Belichick’s weekly UNC news conference attended by the school’s chancellor and athletic director, an attempt to show a united front against speculation about a possible firing and/or resignation.

“Reports about my looking for a buyout or trying to leave here is categorically false,” Belichick said. “There’s zero truth to any of that. I’m glad I’m here.”

Where he really had wanted to be was in the NFL. Multiple sources say that as he limped through his final season in New England — a listless 4-13 campaign — the legendary coach began to view life after Foxborough not with dread but with a measure of excitement.

Armed with perhaps the greatest coaching résumé of all time, he expected another NFL team to quickly hire him. He had, after all, spent decades beating them all.

Seven franchises (Atlanta, Carolina, Las Vegas, the Los Angeles Chargers, Seattle, Tennessee and Washington) would have openings. At least four more (Chicago, Dallas and both New York teams) could have reasonably fired their guy just to get to Belichick. Even Philadelphia seemed to be a possibility.

Instead, only Atlanta interviewed Belichick, and the Falcons then chose Raheem Morris.

The belief around the league, according to sources at the time, wasn’t so much that the now-73-year-old might have lost something as a coach.

Far more troubling was that Belichick was stuck in his ways and would not cede control over player personnel decisions, which doomed the end of his time in New England. The trend in the NFL was to have the front office operate with a measure of independence. Could Belichick’s famously controlling ways allow that?

Essentially, the man famous for the phrase “Do your job” wouldn’t do just one job — coach the team. Personality overwhelmed potential. His budding feud with Patriots owner Robert Kraft only added to concerns.

It’s not that all those franchises made good decisions. Las Vegas and Tennessee have already replaced the coaches they chose instead of Belichick. The New York Jets limped through another year before a regime change, only to maybe get worse.

If Belichick were rolling in Chapel Hill as he anticipated, maybe the how-do-you-like-me-now vibes would be swinging the other way. He isn’t, though. Against three Power 4 opponents, his team has been outscored 120-33.

There is no shortage of media stories about disappointed players, disaffected parents and general chaos. A coach who once demanded discipline runs a team without it. A leader who once decried distractions is now in the tabloids. Debates rage about how perhaps the Patriots’ success really was all about Tom Brady.

Belichick and UNC general manager Michael Lombardi clearly didn’t fully understand how college football worked. They dubbed the Tar Heels the NFL’s 33rd team, but roster construction, especially through the transfer portal, has thus far failed.

Flush with money, attention and Belichick’s pipeline-to-the-pros credibility, UNC brought in 70 new players. It should be at least decent. Instead, some NFL scouts call it one of the worst rosters in the ACC.

The duo told multiple sources their plan last fall and brushed off suggestions that college is unique — despite longtime NFL head coaches Herm Edwards (Arizona State) and Lovie Smith (Illinois) trying similar tacks in recent years without much success. Going the other direction, college legends from Urban Meyer to Steve Spurrier have often flamed out quickly in the NFL, and even Nick Saban retreated from the Miami Dolphins to Alabama after two seasons.

This is what the NFL has seized on. This is what diminished interest in Belichick originally, a headstrong run of bad personnel decisions. Only now it’s in the college portal, not the professional draft.

Maybe Belichick can still coach, but not with the roster he’s constructed.

“It’s a learning curve,” Belichick admitted Monday. “We’re all in it together. But we’re making a lot of progress, and the process will eventually produce the results we want like they have everywhere else I’ve been.”

“Everywhere else he’s been” is watching closely, a league still fascinated by him, just not for the reasons that Belichick likely hoped.